Final report PromoTex Expo 2019

Kick-off exceeds all expectations:

A successful debut for the World of Advertising and Selling
PromoTex Expo starts in top shape with 13,217 trade visitors

One visit, all the perks – a brilliant idea, well received. Featuring a total of 1,084 exhibiting companies, the new trade show network consisting of PSI, PromoTex Expo and viscom underscored its ambition of becoming Europe’s largest combined event for advertising and selling. More than half of the exhibitors came from outside Germany, representing a total of 38 countries.

“An outstanding result that makes a clear statement on the international level. A real power pack that represents virtually all the key players across all areas of visual, textile and haptic advertising – the trendsetters and innovators of the market”, says Michael Freter, Managing Director of Reed Exhibitions Deutschland.

The new trade show network turned a long-time dream of advertising pros and marketers into a reality: six exhibition halls filled with creativity and inspiration, live performances and future labs, structured into three events, covering nearly the entire range of “below-the-line marketing”, and all of that under one roof with PSI, the leading European insider event for the promotional products industry; a repositioned viscom, Europe’s leading trade fair for visual communication; and the newly created PromoTex Expo, conceived as the international trade show for promotion, sports and workwear.

“The time was ripe to create a new, central hotspot for all things advertising and selling, without losing sight of the independent existence and identity of each of the respective industries”, says Petra Lassahn, the director of the three shows.

PromoTex Expo with 13,217 trade visitors on top form from the outset
PromoTex Expo celebrated a debut on top form. Registering 127 exhibitors and 13,217 trade visitors from 39 nations it made the top rankings among European trade fairs from the start.

“A great start in terms of footfall, international reach and relevance. The fact that nearly half – 45% to be precise – of visitors came from abroad is a strong vote of confidence. The market acknowledges our new conception. A clear mandate for widening our area of influence within the European trade show league,”

says Michael Freter.

This is also reflected in exhibitors’ testimonials: “The course charted with PromoText, PSI and viscom is a very good one. We have achieved our aim of reaching more distributors from different countries. It was a success. We welcomed significantly more international customers to our stand and the impression overall was that attendance from abroad was very high,” confirms Mauro Bruno, CEO TH CLOTHES from Portugal.

A view unanimously echoed by almost all exhibitor statements in Hall 13 where PromoTex Expo is located, and also stressed by Henner Marquardt, CEO of MAPROM GmbH from Höxter. With its 200 employees this is one the largest companies in textile finishing throughout Europe. “The interplay of the three trade shows has worked very well in our view. We were surprised at the high number of visitors attending.” The proximity with viscom specialised in finishing themes also paid off here.

viscom re-booted: 30% more visitors
viscom also “crossed the finishing line” with results that followed on from the successes of past years. With 9,647 visitors (2017: 7,231) from 53 nations and 24% international attendance it managed to depart for new shores.

This result made Petra Lassahn, who had been “on board” with viscom since 2006, extremely happy: “We have succeeded in turning things around after three frankly anything but easy years. Our focus on the core elements – signmaking, large-format printing and print finishing – and the development of new live hands-on formats and lecture forums decisively contributed to achieving this turnaround. viscom is a winners’ trade show again.”

This was also the verdict often heard with reference to the interplay of the three trade shows – such as by Frank Schenk: “To our mind, holding PromoTex Expo, PSI and viscom concurrently has proved a real asset. Full aisles show that the new dates have gone down very well. We were positively surprised with the number of visitors.”

PSI posts 17,602 visitors from 81 nations
With 17,602 visitors PSI was right on target posting a 1.5% plus against the previous year (17,342). International attendance was again strikingly high: 58% of visitors travelled from outside of Germany, one in seven of them from overseas. The sea of flags representing the participating nations at the Düsseldorf Exhibition Centre was correspondingly colourful. A total of 81 countries showed their colours in Düsseldorf, turning the trade show into the centre of the promotional products world for three days.

Next year’s PromoTex Expo, PSI and viscom will take place in Düsseldorf from 7 to 9 January 2020

Note: PSI’s, viscom’s and PromoTex Expo’s visitor, exhibitor and floor space figures are calculated and certified according to the uniform definitions published by FKM – German Society for Voluntary Control of Fair and Exhibition Statistics.

PromoTex Expo Testimonials

“The interplay between the three trade shows has worked very well from our perspective. We were surprised to see so many visitors here. This shows that this course can be the right one.”

Henner Marquardt, CEO MAPROM GmbH

“We liked the show this year much better than last year. Holding PSI, PromoTex Expo and viscom concurrently was a very good move. My target was to generate more new distributors from different countries. It was a success. We had many international visitors at our booth. We felt the show was much more international. For the future we would like to see an even stronger collaboration between PSI and PromoTex Expo.”

Mauro Bruno, CEO TH CLOTHES, Portugal

“We are satisfied with PromoTex Expo. We came with a positive feeling and were not disappointed. The quality of visitors was very high. We had excellent talks. There were fewer promotional product distributors coming to our stand but more companies with a clear textile focus instead. There were many very good key players on site.”

Bent Norskov, Director Clipper Corporate, Denmark

“We were initially quite critical about PromoTex Expo but now we are very satisfied and consider hiving off the textile segment from PSI as a separate trade show a good move. We exhibited at PSI for seven years and ventured to switch to PromoTex Expo this year. There are synergies resulting from this, especially with the other exhibitors in the hall. We benefit mutually from our customers. We also browsed viscom to find out about any new trends in the printing press market.”

Peter Bach, Export Sales Vangàrd Retail A/S, Denmark

“We were excited to see the difference between PSI and PromoTex Expo. This is the 10th time we have taken part in the show and this year was really good. We had different visitors, meaning more printers. It was a good mix, so it was a really good show for us. We have already booked our booth for next year.”